Another extremely well done chapter. The battle scenes were written with the usual excellence -- not too detailed but really capturing the intensity of the battle. I do agree with Edith, that Sirius got way too sloppy with his scheming, almost to the level of super villain complexity for complexity's sake. I'd like to think it's because the character actually developed a conscience and couldn't keep treating people like game pieces, or he just could be getting lazy. I do have to ask if I missed something about the crystals? They seemed to be a bit of a deus ex machina --- nothing wrong with that, a ton of stories use that technique, I was just curious. A couple of other questions: when did the Lestrange - Ginny link occur? Was is when she was captured or earlier and, while I appreciate the cliffhanger, who exactly is Edith? Thanks for a great chapter.

parakletosTuesday 3rd January 2017 00:02

Chapter 16 (Author Response)

As usual, a very thoughtful review, thank you.

Essentially, when some one gets over clever, they invariably miss something and Sirius did. He thought he was setting a trap and actually someone else was. The crystals were part of that trap set by someone who realised that wizards rely on magic too much to solve issues and thus can be countered easily.

Part of the reason he got sloppy was that he did change as a character because of his developing relationship with Edith.